Will This Acquisition Help Ericsson (ERIC) Stock?

Ericsson (ERIC) announced it's buying the U.S.-based MetraTech to enhance its cloud capabilities and its presence in the U.S.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Ericsson (ERIC) announced on Tuesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the privately held U.S.-based company MetraTech Corp.

Ericsson, an information and communications technology solutions provider, is buying the metadata-based billing company in order to expand its expertise in billing, accelerate its cloud capabilities, and its geographic presence in the U.S.

"Ericsson will gain capabilities to support customers, partners and suppliers in multiple industries and accelerate the creation and delivery of new value-added services," the company said.

Shares of Ericsson are lower by -0.71% to $12.66 in early afternoon trading on Tuesday.

TheStreet Ratings team rates ERICSSON as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate ERICSSON (ERIC) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that we feel that the company's cash flow from its operations has been weak overall."